


Base Camp at the Bottom (of a really big deal)

by embroiderama



Series: Skeleton [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Rape Aftermath, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:51:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Neal withdrew into denial to deal with what happened to him, Peter worried and investigated and planned and hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Base Camp at the Bottom (of a really big deal)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [A Skeleton, A Closet to Keep It In](http://embroiderama.livejournal.com/514592.html) and starts immediately afterward--this story probably won't make sense without that one. Thank you to [](http://angelita26.livejournal.com/profile)[**angelita26**](http://angelita26.livejournal.com/) and [](http://theatregirl7299.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://theatregirl7299.livejournal.com/)**theatregirl7299** for reading over this and to everybody who's given me encouragement and suggestions along the way--this one was in limbo for a long time. Title from Ani DiFranco's "Independence Day."

Some part of Peter, the part that had chased Neal for years and never quite wanted to trust him, wanted to believe that it was a con. That it was a lie, some byzantine plan Neal had concocted with Mozzie to trick Peter into…something. That part of Peter was grateful that Neal wouldn’t look at him as he spoke because Neal might have been able to fake the tone of his voice, but the look in his eyes was something else. Not even Neal Caffrey could make that look of devastation and shock a lie.

And the doctor’s report was no lie. A mild concussion from a blunt object, perhaps a government-issued Glock, colliding with the back of his head. Rectal tears, traces of spermicidal lubricant. Shock. It was all terrifyingly true, and Peter couldn’t do anything to change that. Neal couldn’t look at him, could barely speak to him. If Neal had no good options, Peter couldn’t refuse him the one he chose. Denial.

Peter wished like hell that he could deny it, but all he could do was leave Neal in peace to construct his new reality. He wasn’t leaving the hospital, not when Neal was so horribly vulnerable, so he stood outside the room until a nurse brought him a chair, and then he sat. He stared at his phone for long minutes and then dialed.

“Hey, hon.” El sounded like he’d woken her, and he thought he should just make his excuses and let her go back to sleep, but he couldn’t do it.

“Hon,” he said, and the word ached in his chest. He wanted her there with him more than anything. Almost anything.

“What happened?” She sounded alarmed and Peter winced at the echo of his questions to Neal earlier. _What happened? What happened?_ “Is—“

“I can’t—I can’t tell you what’s going on. I want to, but I made a promise.” He hadn’t said he wouldn’t tell anybody, but he couldn’t ask El to pretend she didn’t know. He didn’t know if he could manage the act himself, but El’s eyes would have revealed her knowledge to Neal in an instant.

“Oh, hon.”

“And I can’t come home tonight, but I need to hear your voice. I know you’re probably in bed, but—“

“No, it’s okay.” She went on then, talking about her day, about work and Satchmo and a message from her mother on Facebook. She kept talking until she was mumbling with sleepiness, and Peter whispered that he loved her and hung up.

He leaned his head against the wall behind him and went through his memory for all the men he knew who worked in the FBI building. So many familiar faces, and one of them could be a monster. Maybe somebody he trusted, somebody Neal trusted. If he slept, he didn’t remember it.

In the morning, Peter hung back while Neal was discharged. He shadowed Neal back to June’s, feeling like it was a sad charade that he didn’t just give Neal a ride home, but Neal needed the distance. Or he thought he did, and it wasn’t Peter’s decision to make. When Neal disappeared through June’s front door, Peter went in to the office, exhausted but far from sleep. He was willing to keep up an act for Neal, but protocol had to be followed to some extent.

He talked to Hughes and convinced him to keep OPR out of the case for the meanwhile. Especially given Neal’s bad experience with them in the past, they’d be like bulls in the china shop of Neal’s mind, and Peter couldn’t allow that. Then he called Diana into his office, shut the door and told her what had happened in as few words as possible. The guilt already ate at him for withholding the information from the rest of the team, but he trusted her implicitly and she was one person who absolutely, positively could not have been responsible for the attack on Neal.

And she would be good—better than Peter, he suspected—at treating Neal the way he wanted, without pity or hesitation or awkwardness. He had three days until Neal came back to work on Monday, and he knew he'd need those days to get his own head on straight, his emotions in check. Peter's guilt was the last thing Neal needed.

Peter spent a few hours tying up his work on the case he and Neal had stayed to work on the night before and then handed it off to Clinton. He was too exhausted and distracted to get any further, so he gave up and left. Instead of going straight home, he drove uptown and parked across the street from June's house. He could see the terrace outside Neal's rooms, the tops of his windows, and he could only hope that Neal was in there resting and recovering as much as possible.

The thought that Neal could be in there alone and in anguish, suffering, was too close to the thought of Neal being brutalized, hurt so badly when Peter had been so nearby. He swallowed back the nausea but the horror of it still filled his lungs and his gut. Sharing what had happened with any of Neal's friends was entirely out of the question, but he realized that there was a compromise, one person he could trust to act with the utmost discretion and not ask for more information than was offered.

"Peter!" June answered the phone, the usual edge of suspicion lurking under her good cheer. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"If you don't mind me asking, are you at home currently?"

"Not at the moment, but I'll be home in a little while. Why?"

"But you are in town?"

"Yes, yes. Why do you ask?"

"June, I--" Peter's throat went dry as he tried to figure out what to say. "I would appreciate it if you would keep an eye out for Neal. He won't say anything, I think, but he...had a bad day."

"A bad day." June's tone made Peter cringe.

"Yes. And I--"

"And you're worried about him." June's voice was softer then, and Peter closed his eyes in relief.

"Yes."

"Are you asking me to report to you on how Neal's doing?"

"Absolutely not." He wanted to say that he'd certainly appreciate it if she did, but he suspected that would be a bad idea. "But I don't know if he'll be opening his door to Mozzie, and I'm just concerned about him being entirely alone."

June was quiet for a moment. "I see," she said quietly. "Thank you, Peter."

After she hung up, Peter sat in the car for another few minutes then pulled back out into the street and headed home. He had to believe that if Neal truly needed him, that he would call, and sleep was becoming an imperative.

~~~

The weekend felt terribly long, waiting to see Neal on Monday. Peter tried to keep himself busy with work around the house while in his head he ruminated about the whole situation--who could have done it, how they would find him, what would happen then. El treaded lightly around the subject, asking questions only with her eyes, but she let Peter hold her close as often and as long as he could.

Monday morning, Neal walked into the bullpen looking as bright and shiny as ever, but the longer Peter watched him the more clearly he could see it was a shell--brittle and protective, prone to cracking. He didn't avoid walking past the copier room, but Peter could see the line of his shoulders change, the set of his jaw. He was steeling himself for battle, and Peter hated to see it. Hated more that he couldn't do anything to immediately resolve the situation.

He called Neal up to his office and the look in Neal's eyes was equal parts threatening and terrified. He wouldn't take a seat, but he did close the door behind him. "What?" He said finally, when Peter still hadn't figured out what to say.

Peter settled on, "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I'm fine." Neal bit the words out and started to cross his arms over his chest but then aborted the move and relaxed them at his sides.

"That's good." Peter knew he had to tread delicately, but there were a few things he needed to communicate. "If you should ever happen to not be feeling fine, I want you to tell me. And I want you to take the time you need."

Neal looked toward the window, silent.

"I need to know you understand that."

Neal glanced at Peter and nodded sharply. "Is there anything else?"

Peter looked at Neal for a moment, then shook his head. "I guess not. If you can keep looking at those questionable bonds, that would be good."

Neal nodded, then looked at Peter and away again. "Thanks," he said, and as Neal walked out the door and down the stairs Peter wasn't sure what exactly what he was being thanked for.

In his office, Peter focused on the only case he could bring himself to care about. With Diana's help, he'd put together a list of most of the men who worked in the building. He didn't have full files on them, but he was patching together as much information as he could--pictures, job position and history, anything he could get his hands on. The forensics report suggested that the attacker had shaved or waxed his body hair to avoid leaving evidence, and Peter fantasized about lining all those men up and forcing them to drop trou, giving them just a taste of the violation Neal had suffered.

He saw his hand on the throat of the faceless perpetrator, his gun between the man's eyes. He saw blood on the wall, blood behind his own eyes, and it wasn't okay. He believed in justice, not revenge, but the helpless frustration of not knowing how he was going to find either of those resolutions made balance difficult to find--and impossible to keep.

Days went by and little changed. Neal showed signs of strain, dark shadows under haunted eyes, but his suits were always perfect, his ties always straight, and few people would look past his smile to the turmoil within. Peter obsessed over his files by day, held onto Elizabeth by night, and worried about Neal always. Always. When he left his house in the morning and found Mozzie sitting in the passenger seat of his car, he couldn't quite manage to be surprised.

Peter shook his head and got inside without starting the car. "Mozzie. How did you get in my car?"

"Like it's difficult," Mozzie muttered. "Look, Suit, what did you do to him?"

Guilt flared in Peter's gut like an ulcer, but he had to let it go. "I didn't do anything to him."

"Well, there's clearly _something_ wrong, and Neal won't tell me anything." Mozzie crossed his arms over his chest. "It's unlike him."

"Neal's really the person you need to talk to here."

"I tried. _Obviously._ But he just keeps saying that nothing happened. Nothing happened, nothing happened." Mozzie flailed his hands around in the air.

"What a surprise." Peter sighed. The one time he wanted nothing more than to bring Mozzie in on a secret, he couldn't do it. "Mozzie, I have to respect Neal's privacy here."

"Hah! As if the FBI respects anybody's privacy."

Peter squeezed his hands around the steering wheel. "I am not the FBI. I'm Neal's friend, and you know that."

Mozzie was quiet for a minute. "But you're not saying that nothing happened."

"No, I am not."

"Very well." Mozzie nodded and opened the door. "Good-bye, Suit." He shut the door, pulled his hat low over his forehead and took off down the street then around the corner and out of sight.

With that, they were a disjointed team of three working on the case--Peter, Diana and Mozzie. Mozzie's first move was a phone call from a number Peter didn't recognize. "I know what happened," he said, sounding more horrified than angry for the first time since Peter had met him.

"He told you?"

"Of course not. I...accessed some records. I found his hospital file. What do you know that's not in there?"

Peter sighed, rubbing his hand over his face and seeing Neal the way he was when Peter first noticed something was wrong in the copier room that night. The shocked, hurt look on his face haunted Peter in a way he hadn't ever expected. "Very little," he admitted.

"And you don't know who it was that did this--this _thing_." It wasn't a question. "How close are you to identifying him?"

"Not close. I'm working on it every minute I can, but we haven't made much progress."

"You and who? The Lady Suit?"

"Diana, yes."

"Good. Give me all the information you have--tomorrow, 10:43am, the northeast side of the statue in Columbus Circle."

"Mozzie, I can't give you everything. I'm not even supposed to have all these records."

"This is Neal," he said, a vicious whisper.

"I'll give you everything I can." Peter hung up and put his head in his hands. The truth was he was glad to have Mozzie working on their side. They could sure as hell use the assistance.

~~~

Neal had never been the most punctual person on a day-to-day basis, and Peter had rarely done more than casually grouse at him about it because when it was important to be on time Peter knew he could rely on Neal absolutely. That reliability hadn't changed, and Peter certainly didn't want to be hard on Neal--he wanted the exact opposite--but he struggled to be flexible because every time Neal was late Peter couldn't help wondering if this was it, if this was the point where Neal had given up.

He would sit in his office and watch the bullpen, thinking about Neal cutting his anklet to go someplace that hadn't failed him so profoundly, Neal taking his own life because he couldn't live with the pain and the fear anymore. Peter didn't think Neal would take that road, but he knew the statistics. He knew them too well. Every time, he stopped himself from calling Neal to check on his status because if one of those things had happened, Peter calling would make it real. Let somebody come and tell him. Let it take a little bit longer. Peter had found out enough things first-hand.

More than a month had passed on the day when Peter sat in his office, restless with worry and frustration because Neal was over an hour late, and that wasn't like him. That was outside the norm, and Peter felt his coffee burning a hole in his gut as he tried to decide what to do. Finally he sent Neal a text, _Where are you?_ , then sat staring at his phone.

Three minutes later it buzzed in his hand. _Overslept._ And that was wrong because Neal was an early riser, even if he did prefer to spend a couple of hours with the newspaper and June's expensive coffee. But Peter wasn't sure why he would lie.

 _See you soon,_ he sent back, hoping that was it and Neal would show up in an hour looking like he'd gotten a good night's sleep for once.

Ten minutes later, Peter's phone buzzed again. _Calling in sick. Sorry._ Peter's gut screamed that this was not okay, and after staring at the phone for a few seconds he hit the button to call Neal.

"I'm sorry," Neal said, sounding utterly worn out, nothing like a man who had slept longer than usual.

"Don't apologize. Do you need to go to the doctor?"

"No," Neal said roughly. "I just can't--I just can't today. Please don't make me come in."

In all his worries about the paths Neal might choose, he never thought of what Neal wouldn't choose. He never thought of Neal Caffrey not being able to get out of bed and deal with the world, and it was so wrong that he wanted to put his fist through glass. "Of course not. Of course not. But I'm coming over." Peter stood and put his hand on his coat.

"Please don't." Neal didn't sound hysterical or like a man on the brink of something desperate; he sounded like a man who was desperately exhausted. "I just need today."

Peter took in a deep, unsteady breath and let it out. The last thing he wanted to do was invade Neal's space, the place that was still safe. What he did want to do--hold on to Neal, make things okay for him again--wasn't on the table. "Okay. What if I bring over lunch in a few hours? I don't have to stay, I just want to see your face."

Neal was quiet for a minute, but Peter could hear him breathing. "I guess. Sure."

"Thank you. I'll call when I pull up in front of June's."

"Okay." Neal hung up then, and Peter put his phone down, dropped his chin to his chest to try to stretch out the tension in his neck. A few minutes later his phone buzzed again and he looked down to see the message. _Thanks Peter._

He closed his eyes, glad that Neal was willing to communicate at all, even in this strange way where neither of them could mention the very dangerous animal in the middle of the room--not an elephant, not this time. A tiger, the kind that ate men.

When Neal answered the door that afternoon, he looked like he hadn't slept at all but he was very composed in his tailored pajamas, his robe wrapped tight around him. He accepted the soup and sandwich Peter brought, promised to come in the next day though Peter didn't ask it of him, then closed and locked the door. Peter stood and looked at the solid wood for a minute before turning and trudging down the stairs, where June waylaid him.

"Neal's ill?" She looked like she knew this wasn't the flu.

"He needs to get some rest."

"I don't suppose this would have anything to do with his 'bad day' last month?" She raised her sculpted eyebrows.

Peter sighed. It wasn't his place to tell June what had happened, and Neal wouldn't thank him for it. He was treading so goddamn lightly that he didn't know where the floor was, but the alternative was unacceptable. "I think he just needs to rest today."

"Very well," June said, sounding like she was terribly disappointed with Peter, and he couldn't bring himself to blame her. He just nodded and left. There was nothing else he could do until they found the man, until they solved the case.

Neal came back to work the next day, his brittle facade back in place. Peter made a preliminary overture to an old friend who was heading up the Financial Fraud department in Boston. They could use a man like Neal, and Peter trusted his friend to be a good man, to watch out for Neal if it came to that. He didn't want to send Neal to another city, and he knew it would be a fight to get it approved, but he had to be able to offer Neal another option. If Neal wanted to go, Peter would make it happen. He'd help Neal sue the goddamn FBI and the Marshals if that was what it took to get him someplace he didn't have to--every day--visually confront the memories that haunted him.

~~~

"Do you even know what happens in your own building?" Mozzie called from a different number every time. Peter wondered, sometimes, what the cell phone industry would do without criminals to keep them afloat. He rolled his eyes and looked down to see Neal working at his desk in the bullpen, then stood and closed his door before responding to Mozzie.

"Apparently not. What do you know that I don't?"

"More things than I have time to list, Suit. But what I'm referencing is a disciplinary report dated four days before _the incident_."

"You know, getting disciplinary reports, especially from the current year, isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world."

"Hah!"

There were benefits to working entirely outside the rules. Peter was jealous, sometimes bitter about the realities of how far his badge went and didn't go. "Send it to me. Copy Diana."

"Obviously." Mozzie hung up, and Peter looked around before pulling the tablet out of his briefcase.

Mozzie had pulled them deeper into his paranoia; documents and data were transferred among them using tablets connected to burner phone 3G data accounts. There was no connection to the Bureau wifi or hardware. Peter didn't believe that there was any kind of conspiracy to hide the perpetrator but he wasn't willing to take the risk of the man himself being able to track them as they hunted him. With a chill, Peter reminded himself that he could be almost anybody. They'd managed to rule out a large number of men, but that did very little to help them pinpoint a name or even a manageable number of names.

Looking at the record Mozzie had sent, Peter felt a glimmer of grim hope that they might have found their first real clue.

~~~

Peter ran into Diana in the hallway, and she had a particularly triumphant and vicious look in her eyes. "Boss!" She looked around, then toned down her expression and gestured with the unmarked, sealed manila envelope in her hand. "Can we talk in your office."

He felt his heart racing as he walked through the bullpen with Diana, and he forced himself not to look at Neal, not to draw his attention while things were still up in the air. He closed his office door behind Diana and perched on the edge of his desk. "What do you have?"

"I think the little guy was right. This jerk, McIntyre, was written up and suspended for two days for 'causing a disturbance' in the Human Resources Branch office. There aren't a lot of details, but on the record he acted unprofessionally when speaking to the admin in that department and attempted to access restricted files. Off the record, I talked to the admin and she seemed glad that somebody was investigating because in her opinion there was something more serious going on than rude behavior. She didn't get in his way when he tried to get into her filing cabinets because she thought the situation had the potential for violence."

"Did she report that to anybody else?"

Diana sighed. "She says she did but there's nothing in the disciplinary report. And look, she may not be an agent but this woman has been working for the Bureau for fifteen years. I trust her judgement."

"Do we know what he was trying to accomplish up at HRB?"

"This is where it gets creepy. When Hughes was considering adding another agent to the department, McIntyre lobbied hard for the transfer. He's been stuck working behind a desk in Bank Fraud since he got out of Quantico three years ago, and he's been telling anybody who'll listen that he belongs in this department."

Peter picked up the picture in the file, and he did remember seeing it when Hughes asked him to take a look at some of the possibles but he didn't think McIntyre had made it into the "yes" or "maybe" piles. In any case, there hadn't been enough room in the budget for another agent in the department and nobody got that transfer. The picture was starting to come together, a scenario in which McIntyre believed he deserved the transfer to White Collar and blamed Neal for taking up budget space and desk space. "Still, this is entirely circumstantial. I don't want to believe that an agent would take professional jealousy that far."

"Yeah, well, there's more. I thought that there was no way a guy like this didn't have some kind of history. So, I did a lot more digging, and the first thing I found was that his mother works in the State Department and apparently had enough juice to get her son a very shallow background check before he got accepted to Quantico. McIntyre went from a series of exclusive private schools straight to the Ivy league--mom's alma mater--for undergrad and grad school."

 

"And what happened there?"

"By all reports he was a good student, not amazing but ambitious. His last year, he was in the running for a really prestigious position, but from the people I talked to he wasn't really at the top, he wasn't going to get it. Then within days of the expected announcement one of the more likely picks quit the program and the school entirely and the other withdrew her application for the position. McIntyre walked away with it."

"That's it?"

"That's all there is on the surface. I looked into it, and there's a whole mess that was sealed and locked away, most of it never reported beyond the campus police. It's ugly."

"What happened?"

"The woman who withdrew her name? She'd made reports to campus police that he was stalking her, making threats. I guess she decided that the position wasn't worth the risk, I don't know. The guy who quit the program? There's a buried report that he was beaten--badly--and after he went home to Michigan he was making the rounds to a number of doctors, none of which was paid for by his parents' insurance. That went on for about a year, and then he started working and didn't go back to school. I can't prove it from what I have now but the dots connect to sexual assault, probably. And a pay-off."

"Is there any way to tie this to McIntyre?"

"In the initial campus police report on the assault he identified McIntyre as his assailant, but that was later withdrawn."

"That's convenient." Peter knew in his gut that this was their guy, and the drive to find him, to _hurt_ him washed through Peter, making his hands shake, his head pound. "Damn it."

"I have an idea," Diana said. "This guy, he's proud of what he did. In the right circumstance? He'd admit it, brag about it."

"Not to OPR he wouldn't."

"No, but put him with the right person wearing a wire." Diana looked across the room with a predatory glint in her eyes, and Peter had a feeling that he was going to really like her plan.

~~~

The fact that part of Diana's plan meant letting McIntyre think he'd won made Peter feel sick, but he was willing to work with what they had. The truth was that since the attack Peter had kept Neal out of most field work, and out of any field work that involved anybody other than their core team. Not knowing who had attacked him meant not knowing who could fail to have his back in the field, and that was unacceptable. And no matter how good a job Neal did at pretending most days, he wasn't at the top of his game.

It was a bad situation all around. The first step for Peter was talking to Hughes. Reese was a good man, and he'd given Peter room to work. He agreed to put through a request for McIntyre to work surveillance on a fictional White Collar case and just gave Peter one of those looks that made it clear there would be hell to pay if the plan didn't succeed.

They would succeed.

The next step was bringing in Jones, and that was worse. Clinton was smart as hell, and he knew he'd been kept out of something by Diana and Peter over the last two months. He hadn't said anything, which was one hell of a mark of his professionalism, but there was no way to avoid the sick shock of learning about what had happened to Neal. There was also no way to avoid the hurt when Clinton realized that he had been, even to a very small extent, among the suspects.

"As far as I was concerned, the initial pool of suspects was every man other than me with access to the building. After that, I was trying to respect Neal's privacy for as long as I could."

"I understand." Jones nodded and looked down, and when he looked back up Peter saw the same righteous anger that had been burning in Diana's eyes for weeks. "What can I do to help get this son of a bitch?"

In the end, it was easy. In the van alone with McIntyre that evening, Jones groused about Neal, about how he'd conned his way onto the team and was taking up space that should be filled by a real agent who deserved to be there. "I'd like to see that piece of crap put in his place for once," Jones said, and Peter could hear how bitter the words tasted on his tongue.

It took very little further encouragement for McIntyre to brag about what he'd done. "I'm way ahead of you, bro," he said, and Peter saw the flash of instantly contained fury on Clinton's face. The details that came after were worse. Hughes, listening with Peter in a car parked half a block away from the van, took Peter's cuffs and made the arrest. Peter was grateful; he would've broken McIntyre's arms. Jones took his service weapon and delivered it straight to ERT.

There were traces of blood on the butt of his service weapon. Traces of blood that matched Neal's blood type.

Peter paced through the office, so much like it had been that night. McIntyre, Hughes, OPR, McIntyre's lawyer and god knew who else were meeting behind locked doors on another floor, and all Peter could do was look at the fixtures that were part of the nightmare. The copier Neal had bumped his head on while McIntyre raped him. The chair that replaced the one Neal had bled on. The bathroom door Neal had disappeared behind while Peter stood holding a bag of Chinese food with klaxons going off in his head that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

He wanted to smash the copier to pieces, wanted to tear up the walls of the room, to put the chair through a window. But it was a crime scene and government property, and Peter wasn't that man. He spent the next few hours in his office waiting, going over the best and worst case scenarios, trying to figure out what he was going to say to Neal. He wanted to feel like solving this case made him some kind of a hero, but he was no hero. There were no heroes in this situation, and there never would be.

The sun was beginning to rise, dim dawn light surrounding the buildings in the cityscape outside, when Hughes let himself into Peter's office and sat down across from him, long limbs loose from exhaustion.

"Tell me good news," Peter said. "Please, Reese."

"It's not all signed yet, but we're making a deal. Obviously, the Bureau doesn't want this to go to trial, or to the news cycle." He ran a hand over what was left of his hair. "As of this morning, Eric McIntyre is no longer employed by the FBI. He'll get some time behind bars." Hughes shook his head. "A hell of a lot less than he deserves, but he won't have an easy time of it, I imagine."

It wasn't enough, but Peter knew that nothing would be enough. "The catch?"

"Caffrey's going to have to make a statement, sign some papers."

"Damn it. He doesn't even want to admit that it happened."

"That's not going to work on a number of levels, and you know it. The statement will be made in private, to me or an OPR agent of my choosing, and it will be classified. This is the way it has to work."

"And if I say that I'm going to tell Neal he shouldn't cooperate, that he should sue the Bureau, push for outside prosecution?"

"Then I'd say I understand where you're coming from, but Caffrey's not going to want that. _You_ want to burn the place down. It sounds like _he_ just wants to get through this. A private statement is the lesser of the available evils."

Peter nodded. "How much time can I give him?"

Hughes sighed. "It's been a long damn day, and a new one's starting. Go talk to him. Go home and sleep. Tomorrow morning we need a statement."

"I'll do my best."

Hughes nodded and unfolded himself from the chair. On his way out the door he stopped and turned back, a dark look in his eyes. "You know I have friends at the State Department, right?"

Peter thought about McIntyre's mother, about the levels of power that had been leveraged to put this man in a position to hurt Neal. "Good," he said. _Good._

~~~

By the time Peter parked down the block from June's mansion, it was late enough in the morning that Neal was most likely awake and getting ready for work. Peter missed the days when he would have gone up and found Neal's door unlocked, when he would've wandered through the apartment to find Neal out on the terrace with ridiculously expensive coffee in hand. In the last two months, Peter hadn't been inside Neal's apartment and Neal hadn't been to the house in Brooklyn. And Peter understood, or he thought he did, that Neal wanted to keep his apartment as a place where this terrible thing wasn't discussed, a clean place.

Their friendship had been a casualty of the silence that Neal required, and as much as Peter wanted things back the way they were he wasn't going to force anything. There had been enough forcing in Neal's life recently; Peter wouldn't be a part of that. From his car, he called Neal and hoped he would pick up.

"Peter?" Neal sounded on edge, and Peter thought that he must have picked up on the fact that something was happening even if they kept him as far from the loop as humanly possible.

"I'm sorry to call so early, but I'm out front. I need to talk to you--would it be okay if I came up?"

"Is it about a case?" Peter could see it in his mind, Neal standing still with his eyes closed, hoping--for what?

"It's about _your_ case." Peter tread as gently as he could then held his breath through a long moment of dead air.

"Give me ten minutes and I'll be down."

"I'll be here."

Peter walked down the block and waited at the foot of June's stairs with a slim 9x12 envelope in his hand--McIntyre's photo in case Neal wanted to see it. When Neal came outside several minutes later, he had on a crisp suit but he was unshaven, his eyes like a man on his way to execution. Neal in court hearing his sentence hadn't looked that bad. "You want to take a walk?"

Neal nodded and started off down the sidewalk with his hands jammed in his pockets.

Peter took a deep breath then caught up to him. "I need you to listen to me, but you don't have to say anything right now. Okay?"

Peter glanced sideways and saw Neal's abrupt nod.

"We got him. He's an agent, _was_ an agent, but I'm pretty sure you don't know him. I have a name and a photo if you want them."

Neal inhaled sharply but didn't respond.

"He's in custody, his badge and gun have been taken. The Bureau is cutting a deal with him, and he will serve time. Not enough time." Peter hesitated a moment as they continued walking in the cool morning air. "They're asking you to make a statement. Hughes wants to take your statement personally, but if you don't want that he'll get somebody from OPR. Somebody you don't know, somebody decent. I can't--" _force_ "--insist on you making a statement, but I think it's the best thing to do. It'll be locked down tight though, I can promise that."

Neal didn't say anything, and Peter didn't know if he would, but he let the silence hang for a while to give him the space. Finally Neal cleared his throat. "Who all knows?"

"Other than me and Hughes and some OPR brass you'll never see?" Peter sighed. "Jones and Diana. Diana's the one who cracked this. I brought her in from the beginning, I had to. And Jones is the one who got us the final evidence for the arrest. I kept him out of it until yesterday. You know you can trust them. Nobody else knows."

"Mozzie."

"I meant nobody else at the Bureau. And I didn't tell Mozzie." Peter heard himself being defensive and stopped.

Neal nodded. "How long do I have to decide?"

"Until tomorrow morning. And you can have today off. I've been up all damn night so I'm going home after this."

"Okay." Neal sounded defeated, and Peter hated it. Hated it.

"There's another thing." Peter held up a hand at Neal's alarmed look. "No, this is just--you talked about options, once, and I want to give you another one. I have a friend, a good friend, a good man, who heads up a division in Boston. If it's too hard to come to the office every day, to be in that place, you can make your statement contingent on a transfer. I'll do whatever I have to do to make that happen, and my friend in Boston would be thrilled to have you on his team."

They walked another block until Neal spoke again. "Do you want me to go?"

"God, no. No. I would hate to lose you. I just need you to know that you're not trapped here. You have options. You have friends if you want them."

Neal nodded and looked away. They kept walking, circling back toward June's. "Thanks," Neal said, quiet and low. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"You know you can always call me?"

Neal nodded then turned and walked back up the stairs to June's front door. Peter watched as he disappeared inside then sighed and drove home. He met El on her way out the door and held her tight. She didn't ask. For two months she hadn't asked, and he loved her for it.

As much as he wanted to collapse directly into bed, Peter knew there was too much going on in his head to let that happen. He spent half of the morning puttering around the kitchen, spending some quality time with Satchmo and wondering if Neal was going to call. When he finally went to bed, he slept hard and woke up when El came home in the late afternoon. He was lounging in bed with the newspaper when he heard a knock at the front door, and as he reached the top of the stairs he heard El answer the door.

"Neal! I haven't seen you in forever, come on in." He could hear the questions in her voice, but she didn't voice them. "You know, let me go get Peter for you."

Her eyes widened as she met Peter in the hallway. "What _happened_ to him?" she whispered harshly.

"Hon." Peter shook his head. "Would you mind giving us the living room for a little while?"

She looked at him steadily for a long moment, and Peter felt like she was reading everything in his eyes. "Sure, okay."

Peter jogged down the stairs and found Neal crouched down near the front door, scratching Satchmo behind the ears. He looked settled, more settled than he'd been in two months, but the tension fell back into place as soon as he stood up. "I hope you don't mind--"

"No, not at all. You want to sit?"

Neal nodded but walked toward the dining table rather than the couch.

"Something to drink? There's an open bottle of red on the counter, and El picked it out so I'm sure it's good."

"Thanks."

Peter brought a generous glass of wine for Neal and a bottle of beer for himself, then sat down across from Neal. He opened his beer and watched Neal sniff then sip at his wine. He waited to see where Neal was going to go with this, literally and figuratively.

"I guess, um, denial's not working for me. I thought it would be better but--" Neal shook his head and took another sip of wine. "I'll make a statement. To Hughes."

"Good. Good, I'm glad." Peter wanted to reach across the table and touch Neal's arm but he'd been so contained, so untouchable, and Peter didn't want to breach that barrier. "I'm not glad that denial's not helping you, but I'm glad you can talk about it even a little bit."

"I just--" Neal rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't know how to live with this. I mean, I am and I'm going to, but I don't know _how_."

Peter felt like somebody had stabbed him somewhere vital. "I--I don't know what to tell you other than you don't have to do it alone."

Neal let out a shaky exhale. "I guess Elizabeth knows?"

"No. You asked for this not to have happened, and I couldn't do that but I could respect your wishes as much as possible. I had to investigate though."

Neal nodded. "I eventually realized you would. I just couldn't deal with it. I don't know if I can now."

"I'd really like it if you'd talk to somebody professionally. Maybe even just a few times, and it doesn't have to be a Bureau shrink. There are better options." Peter had a list of the most recommended therapists for male survivors of rape, but Neal had to want it for there to be any point.

"Maybe," Neal said, and that was better than a no.

Peter nodded, feeling almost dizzy with relief that Neal was there, that he had opened the discussion, that he hadn't given up. "Will you let me be your friend again?"

Neal looked away, then looked back with tears standing in his eyes. "Please. I just--trying to make this not have happened is making it _everything_. It's eating everything in my life." Neal wasn't crying, but tears hung close and heavy in his voice as much as in his eyes.

"Okay. Okay." Peter looked at Neal's hand, reached out flat on the table, and without letting himself think about it too much he put his fingers lightly on top of Neal's.

Neal froze for a moment then turned his hand under Peter's and held on so tightly that Peter's fingers ached. Neal wouldn't make eye-contact but he held on as he said, "It's lonely, living like this. I didn't know--I--it's good being here."

Peter breathed past the ache in his chest. "I want you here. And El's missed you. Will you stay tonight?"

Neal nodded silently, then pulled his hand back and wiped at his face.

"Do you want to talk businesses or can I give El the all-clear to come back down."

"I think I'm at my limit for business tonight."

Peter went over to the foot of the stairs and called up, "Hey, Hon?"

Unsurprisingly, she appeared immediately. "You boys done talking?" She came down the stairs and looked at Neal slumped at the table then back at Peter.

"Yeah. I hope you don't mind a guest for tonight?"

"Not at all."

Neal stood up. "I'm just going to wash up."

"Come here, you," El said gently and moved in to hug Neal, slowly enough that he could duck away. But he let himself be folded into her arms, and when he rested his head on top of hers, just for a moment, he looked truly relaxed for the first time in two months.

They had a long way to go, and maybe there would never exactly be an end, but looking at Neal--here, in his home, dealing with things, willing to speak the truth--he thought that maybe things would eventually be okay. It was more than he had hoped for. It was enough.


End file.
